Gaza militants fire rocket into Israel -army

JERUSALEM, June 23 (Reuters) - Militants in the Gaza Strip
launched a rocket at Israel on Tuesday which landed in open
ground near a community close to the Palestinian enclave and
Israel hit back at the launching site, the Israeli army said.

There were no injuries or damage after the rocket fell near
the community of Yad Mordechai, Israeli police and the military
said. Residents in the northern Gaza Strip said nobody was hurt
by Israel's retaliatory strike near Beit Hanoun.

An army statement said the rocket launcher was hit.

Rocket launchings have become an almost weekly occurrence
from the Hamas-controlled coastal strip recently but no militant
group took immediate responsibility for Tuesday's attack.

A group that sympathises with al Qaeda, who have defied
Hamas, have been blamed for other recent strikes, none of which
caused injuries or damage.

The Israel-Gaza border area had largely been quiet since
last year's July-August war, when Palestinian militants launched
thousands of rockets and mortar bombs into Israel and Israeli
shelling and air strikes battered the enclave.

More than 2,100 Palestinians died, mainly civilians, while
67 soldiers and six civilians were killed on the Israeli side.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Writing by
Ori Lewis; Editing by Dominic Evans and Christian Plumb)